T-Mobile customers to get domestic data roaming limits

T-Mobile users will get domestic data roaming limits on their cell phone plans on April 5, according to TmoNews. Currently, there are no limits on domestic roaming.

A document written by T-Mobile and available on TmoNews says that the mobile carrier is making roaming changes in order to "continue providing competitive pricing options in the industry."

TmoNews writes that T-Mobile will be letting customers know of these adjustments in the beginning of February.

The limits will be staggered: the 2GB plan will be limited to 50MB of data, the 5GB plan will get 100MB, and the 10GB plan will have a 200MB limit. T-Mobile will send users a text message once they near the allotment, and when customers go over, roaming data services will be cut off until they are back in network range. The plan will be reset with each billing cycle.

Some types of plans will be exempt from the rationing, including business and government accounts, T-Mobile employee accounts, mobile broadband rate plans, voice domestic roaming, and text and picture messaging while roaming.

"Domestic data roaming allotments are currently used across the wireless industry and are quite common with other carriers," reads the T-Mobile document. Currently Sprint limits domestic data roaming, but Verizon and AT&T do not.

The T-Mobile document goes on to say that "very few customers use enough domestic data while roaming on other carriers' networks to be impacted." TmoNews agrees not a lot of customers will be affected and estimates around 10,000 people will notice the changes.

T-Mobile may be looking to cut costs. According to TmoNews, the mobile carrier spent $400 million in data roaming last year. All of this also comes right after the proposed $39 billion merger between AT&T and T-Mobile fizzled because of opposition from the FCC, the Justice Department, and rival carriers.